


Snowstorm

by pocketsizedquasar



Category: Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Genre: Blizzards & Snowstorms, Cold Weather, Fluff, M/M, just...cute stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 15:32:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19321009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketsizedquasar/pseuds/pocketsizedquasar
Summary: I was cold and it was the middle of a snowstorm in Boston, so this sappy little scene happened. Ishmael loves the cold. Queequeg has...other thoughts.





	Snowstorm

It doesn't take Queequeg very long to decide he doesn't like the cold. He wasn't built for icy winds and sleet and snow, wasn't made for unbearably long nights and dying Octobers, revenant and revengeful Novembers. No, he was built for the summer, for heat and sunshine and warm rain. He finds quickly after he leaves that the worst part of whaling is not the stench or the storms or the danger, but the cold that seeps beneath his skin and tugs at all his senses, demanding attention and discomfort. He hates the layers, hates how the winter sun feels like nothing more than a white lie, no warmth or care to give. It is not his sun. Even now, years later, he dreads the coming of winter, the darkening skies and reddening trees, the shortening days.    
Ishmael, on the other hand, loves the cold. He somehow loves the bitter New England winter and the bone-chilling snow, loves the wind chill so frigid it burns, the sensation of stepping inside and feeling the temperature spike and incinerate away the cold. He is at home in the snow and fiery trees and biting winds. He will tell Queequeg everything he knows and loves about this season - about snowflakes and how they form, about which lakes are safe to skate on, about the trees that will lose their leaves first. Ishmael tells him of his days as a teacher, how every year, on the first snow of the season, his students would beg and beg him to let them outside. He tells Queequeg how he would refuse, but how he knew as well as they did that it was only a matter of time before he relented - and those scrawny kids would learn nothing that day but how good their stuffy old teacher was at snowball fights.    
Queequeg doesn't understand Ishmael's fascination with the cold, but he enjoys hearing him talk anyway. Enjoys watching him, all breezy and full of life. While he stands there, bundled up and gloved and scarved, he'll watch his Ishmael traipse around in just a light jacket, cheeks glowing a soft cold-touched pink, eyes alight with childlike wonder.    
When they go inside, Ishmael laughs at Queequeg's chattering teeth and shivering body. He'll take him up in his arms, kiss the snowflakes from his eyelashes and the cold from his cheeks and the blue from his lips, hold him tight as the chill melts off of them in layers. In times like these, Queequeg thinks perhaps the cold isn't so bad after all.    



End file.
